An author sweats to pay his debt

The cover is done, the marketing has begun. But Phillip Gwynne admits he's still writing the final instalment of his popular series.

For any writer, there is nothing quite like a pressing deadline to concentrate the mind. As Phillip Gwynne sets about writing the sixth and final instalment in his young-adult thriller series The Debt, he has the extra impetus of knowing the book is already ''finished''. Well, finished apart from the small matter of the words to fill the pages between the enticing artwork on the covers.

''The weird thing is that the book is there,'' he says. ''The cover is on all the advertising - but I haven't actually written it. It's got everything but the content. There is no better incentive to write a book than to actually look at the book!''

Looking ahead: Phillip Gwynne insists his future is about ''extending myself as a writer''.Credit:Anne-Cecile Esteve

Gwynne appears to be bearing well under the strain, writing up to 3000 words daily from his home in Bali (he and his family escaped there after Sydney's real estate market ''spat them out'').

The news will hearten his legions of young-adult fans keen to know how things turn out for Gwynne's teenage protagonist, Dom Silvagni. Instalment three, Bring Back Cerberus, is just out and the fourth will be published in June. The debt in the series is the ''gift'' Dom receives on his 15th birthday - the shocking revelation that he must complete six heroic tasks or repay the obligation with a pound of flesh.

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Bring Back Cerberus by Phillip Gwynne. Allen & Unwin, $14.99.

''I grew up reading Biggles and all that high-action stuff,'' Gwynne says. ''I've always loved books that, once you pick them up, you can't put them down. I remember as a kid that feeling of reading a book in bed until you finish it, putting it down and daylight creeping in.''

Gwynne was also conscious of how difficult it is to grab and hold the attention of younger readers these days.

''I look at the kids on their iPods and iPads and think about the competition,'' he says. ''These kids are playing games that are just non-stop. How do you compete against that with old technology like a novel? I thought I'd give it a go and write something that was non-stop action and give no kid the excuse to put it down.

''There is also a deeper idea. We like to think we are born free, but actually I think we are all born with some sort of obligation, be it to our parents or to society. So I did that classic thing as a writer, upping the ante so that this kid has a horrendous responsibility.''

The Debt also draws on some aspects of Gwynne's days growing up as a footy-mad kid in country South Australia, surrounded by less-than-perfect male role models.

''My father was a fisherman but an alcoholic, really,'' he says. ''I grew up in this world where the adults were pretty useless, the males at least. Growing up, football was everything to me.''

Gwynne played professional football for a while and then worked as a marine biologist in the Northern Territory. But all the time he felt something was lacking.

''It was terribly frustrating and deeply unfulfilling at an incredibly profound level,'' he says. ''I was doing all these jobs and I was OK at them but never that good at them.

'' I was always thinking, 'Why aren't I better at that? Why am I not a better marine biologist?' And the answer was that I was never meant to do that; I was always meant to be a writer.''

A creative-writing course taught by award-winning children's author Libby Gleeson finally showed him the way forward.

''When I tried to write before, I got myself tangled up too much thinking I had to create this perfect opening sentence and write all this profound stuff but she gave me this technique where you don't think about it, you just write the words down on the page.''

Then he read some of his efforts to his classmates. ''When I finished they clapped and that was it - I knew what I had to do.'' Gwynne's first book was Deadly, Unna?, a closely autobiographical tale about playing football with Aboriginal youngsters in a country town. It won the Children's Book Council's award for older readers in 1998.

There was a sequel to Deadly, Unna? (Nukkin' Ya), more books for children and teens and, in 2008, an adult detective novel, The Build Up.

Gwynne has resisted being pigeonholed as an author, happily going wherever his ideas lead him.

''You move on all the time and want to explore other stuff and writing,'' he says. ''The Debt was part of that. I thought, 'Why not do a series? Why not genre books?' I know a lot of people who love Deadly, Unna? would probably think, 'What's he doing that for?', but it's not about them, it's about me extending myself as a writer and finding new challenges and keeping myself interested.''

So, what might be the next challenge after he has filled the blank spaces between the covers of the final instalment of The Debt?

''Being an expat in Bali, it just seems obvious that my next novel will be an adult novel set in Bali,'' he says. ''It's a no-brainer.''

Bring Back Cerberus by Phillip Gwynne is published by Allen & Unwin, $14.99.